This invention relates to control logic. In particular, this invention relates to gated grouping of control logic.
The extensive algorithm development in the control electronics field has been applied in the past to provide lockouts and other devices that help prevent improper gating. In particular, in the field of power electronics, the algorithmic approach has been used to prevent improper gating of silicon controlled rectifiers in a power converter. Furthermore, high noise immunity signal transmission techniques, including differential electrical interfaces, optical couplers, and fiber optic interfaces, have also been employed. Furthermore, analog filters have been used on the gate pulse amplifier portion of a power converter system to reduce noise.
However, large amounts of digital logic are generally avoided due to the high power levels associated with the gate pulse amplifier cards. Furthermore, often the signals applied to the gate pulse amplifier cards are gating enables instead of gating pulse trains. With this approach, logic is required on the gate pulse amplifier card to produce pulse trains during the period the enable signal is active. This approach reduces the bandwidth and wave shape requirements with the transmission media, but can introduce gating skew in multiple converter environments. Additionally, if the gating input signal fails in the xe2x80x9conxe2x80x9d state, mis-gating of the converter and excessive power consumption in the gate pulse amplifier card can occur.
The systems and methods of this invention group gating control logic. This grouped gating control logic can be applied to power converter systems. However, it should be appreciated that the group gating control logic systems and methods of this invention can be applied to any control system. For example, a system which control multiple mutually exclusive outputs such as mechanical relays or, for example, lights could use the methods and systems of this invention.
In particular, logic is added in a gate pulse control system. The gate pulse control system filters noise glitches from incoming pulse trains and provides minimum on and off times for the outgoing pulses. Furthermore, through the use of a gating state machine, the timing and filtering of the gate pulse control system can be modified based on the particular application environment.
These and other features of the invention are described in or apparent from the following Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments.